Posts tagged researchers
In landslide victory, 7,200 UC professionals join United Auto Workers in unionization effort
September 8, 2025 // In a win for labor, 7,200 researchers and public service professionals, or RPSPs, across the University of California system announced Tuesday the formation of a new union after a vote in late August. The vote passed with 83% of the 3,692 ballots cast voting “yes.” The thousands of previously nonunionized employees now represented by RPSP-UAW, will join over 50,000 UC workers organized with the United Auto Workers, or UAW.
National Right to Work Foundation Issues Notice to University of California Graduate Students Amid UAW Strike Orders
May 21, 2024 // The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation has released a special legal notice to graduate students, teaching assistants, and researchers across the University of California system. The notice comes as officials of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union have ordered a strike at UC Santa Cruz over the university’s position on the Israel-Hamas conflict and related campus protests.
NIH researchers say agency seeks to block unionization effort
August 7, 2023 // The agency is arguing that postdocs and graduate students aren’t employees, according to union organizers Early-career researchers who work in labs operated by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) have hit a roadblock on their way to unionizing. In June, a group of postdocs, graduate students, and postbaccalaureate researchers asked the agency that oversees the certification of unions by federal employees, the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), for permission to hold an election to determine whether early-career researchers at NIH are in favor of forming a union. But on Monday, the organizers say, they were told that NIH had submitted paperwork to FLRA arguing that many of the union’s potential members are not employees and don’t have standing to form a union. Union representatives also declined to send Science the entirety of the document NIH submitted to FLRA. But they did share one excerpt, which argued that most of the potential union’s 4800 likely members cannot be considered employees. “The Agency is of the view that individuals in all categories appointed under the CRTA [Cancer Research Training Award] and IRTA [Intramural Research Training Award] authorities, i.e., all categories other than Clinical Fellows, Research Fellows, and Senior Research Fellows, are not employees under the Statute,” the document states, according to the union.
‘It feels like it’s strike summer’: US unions flex muscles across industries
July 31, 2023 // “In the wake of the Patco strike, companies saw strikes as opportunities to weaken unions or even break them. That’s not the case today. Today there’s no fear that calling a strike will result in disaster,” said Lichtenstein. “Today there’s a sense that unions are on the offensive,” Lichtenstein continued. “Take the actors. They say they don’t want just a good contract. They want a transformative contract.”
Cummings wins runoff, will be Communications Workers first African-American president
July 12, 2023 // Cummings is the union vice president who leads CWA’s District 6, headquartered in Austin, Texas, and was the longtime president of Houston-based Local 6222. He defeated Ed Mooney, the union vice president and leader of mid-Atlantic District 2-13. Cummings succeeds current President Chris Shelton, who is retiring at the end of this convention, on July 13, in St. Louis. Mooney suffered from credible accusations, disclosed by an outside investigating panel after complaints from nine former and present local leaders of sexual harassment, dislike of gays, bullying, intimidation, and retaliation against foes within the union.
Yale grad students vote to unionize after decadeslong push
January 11, 2023 // Graduate students across the U.S., both at public and private institutions, have pushed in recent years to organize and bargain collectively. Columbia University, another Ivy League school, in 2018 agreed to begin contract negotiations with a union representing its graduate student teaching and research assistants, ending a long battle in which the university denied them the right to unionize.
Nearly 48,000 University of California workers poised to strike Monday
November 14, 2022 // Leaders of United Auto Workers unions representing the workers have informed the UC Office of the President of their intent to strike at all of UC's 10 campuses starting Monday if they are unable to reach an agreement with the university, UC officials said Thursday. UAW bargaining units are set to picket from 8 a.m. Monday. Nearly 98 percent of the 36,558 members voted to approve the strike authorization, according to the union.